Broadening the frame

This chapter showcases what high-performing TPM teams are doing differently to stand out from the rest as dependence on supply chains and other third-party networks not only continues to increase, but are also becoming intertwined, co-dependent, and complicated. TPM mechanisms in many organizations continue to fall short of expectations, despite increasing leadership focus and investment. This is also reflected in the growing number and criticality of third-party incidents and regulatory intervention.

The root cause for most of the challenges described in the earlier chapter typically lies in the silos that exist in these organizations. These silos narrowly focus on just a piece of the business (e.g., a functional area or department), without considering the effects of their decisions and actions on the other areas. Despite technology aggravating the challenge of cross-functional integration, the approach to finding the solution needs to go beyond just systems integration to achieve a wider “unity of effort” that can be possible by reconciling diverse goals, activities, and knowledge into unified action.

In this chapter, we present a maturity model to help you assess the progress made by your organization in your maturity journey to integrated TPM. Higher maturity can bring several rewards. Despite aspirations to evolve as a digital enterprise, it demonstrates how many organizations struggle to seamlessly integrate diverse TPM systems and smarter solutions that are increasingly becoming available such as applying an “engagement layer” that leverages user interfaces (UI) and analytics to enable interoperability and present a cogent view of their extended enterprise.

This chapter showcases what high-performing TPM teams are doing differently to stand out from the rest as dependence on supply chains and other third-party networks not only continues to increase, but are also becoming intertwined, co-dependent, and complicated. TPM mechanisms in many organizations continue to fall short of expectations, despite increasing leadership focus and investment. This is also reflected in the growing number and criticality of third-party incidents and regulatory intervention.

A key choice for organizations is whether they would like to do so on an incremental or phased manner by migrating one or two TPM components/processes at a time to a common technology platform (i.e., “land and expand”) or whether they would like to do so all together (“big bang”). Another important choice is to identify key strategic partners, for instance end-to-end managed service delivery providers for TPM who can significantly accelerate this journey for organizations to fully reap the benefits of transformation.